Abundance from Scraps The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. Jesus is able to feed us abundantly, even with scraps. He meets earthly needs by feeding the crowds and continues now to offer himself as holy meal, freely given to all, no matter their income or…
Judgment and Mercy The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. Matthew’s gospel knows little compromise: sheep or goats, wheat or weeds, good or evil. Finding the good news of God’s love for all people, for all creation, can be a challenge in this book. Today’s gospel…
Life in Every Direction The sermon will be a post on our Facebook page. Please click on link to view sermon. We can identify death in every direction. We see war, hunger, addiction, poverty, a dying planet, and broken hearts. This is not a new story. The children of Israel surely saw death in every direction,…
With ash and soot we begin this Lenten season with confession; we begin with Psalm 51; we begin on our knees. Today this ancient prayer placed on our lips becomes new again: “Have mercy on me, O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.” We speak our truths…
This is a strange time of year. The days are short, the nights are long, and even though we dream of more daylight, we walk around hoping against hope that there won’t be enough sunshine produced for a rodent (okay, a groundhog!) to see its own shadow. A quick scan of today’s news can be…
The time after Epiphany is the church’s time to invite us to come and see who this one born in a manger will be, and to discover what this one born to a young woman might mean for us and for the world. Today’s gospel tells us that Jesus is the “Lamb of God who…
From the time Jesus first presented himself for baptism by John until today, Christians have puzzled over why Jesus had to be baptized. The act of baptism was understood to be an act of repentance and the cleansing of one’s sins. John does not understand why Jesus, whose sandals John is “not worthy to carry”…
The joy-filled carols of Christmas still seem to echo in the nave as the assembly gathers for worship. There is praise of God in the psalm this day as the psalmist sings of the Lord present in all creation even as the same creation reveals a Creator worthy of praise. Still, our joy is not…
Names are powerful makers of meaning both in the scriptures and in our lives. Consider how much we associate people with their names. A name is merely a word, a sound, yet it can completely represent a person. And our names can be powerful. Think about the resurrection account in John 20 when a distraught Mary…
In this season of Advent we stand in the discomforting quiet of waiting for the salvation of the Lord while simultaneously seeing that very salvation breaking into the world around us. Like John the Baptist we ask Jesus “are you here, or should we still wait?” The answer to this question is “yes.” Yes, Jesus…